"And now, breaking is going to be added in Paris, and Japan even has a gold medal candidate," Saruwaka, who once placed second in a local surfing contest and still rides waves for fun, said at her home in Tokyo.

"I used to see kids breakdancing under the railroad tracks and would think to myself, 'I'd probably be one of them if I were young'," she said, confessing that her parents had started her in Nihonbuyo — traditional Japanese dance — when she was 5 to keep their feisty daughter out of trouble.

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